1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the image indexing and retrieval method using the rosette pattern for the improvement of retrieval efficiency and performance. In particular, the present invention relates to the image retrieval method to store the image information using the rosette pattern in which the scanning is concentrated in the central area of an image, extract image information using the rosette pattern from a query image that a user wishes to retrieve, and to calculate the similarity between the stored image information and the query image through their gray histogram distribution and retrieve the requested image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as the image compression and communication technology develops rapidly, the use of digital image information increases at a formidable speed in various areas such as the Internet, VOD and digital electronic library. Accordingly, research for a method to effectively manage and retrieve image information has been actively conducted. In this regard, for the purpose of the efficient data management and retrieval, MPEG-7 standardizing project is presently in progress in order to express a subject matter with its characteristic contents.
In order to extract information from images, it is necessary to first conduct a step of obtaining the inputted images. In other words, scanning is necessary. Conventional scanning methods include the progressive scan pattern, interlaced scan pattern and the zigzag scan pattern which is used principally for compression. Using these scanning methods, the information of entire pixels constituting an image is obtained.
The progressive scan pattern is a pattern used for scanning pixels sequentially. A screen is scanned at once from the upper left part to the lower right part of the screen. Because the scan line is clear and no blinking occurs in the progressive scan pattern, most monitors use this scan method.
The interlaced scan pattern is a pattern used for scanning conducted by skipping over one line between the scanning lines. The zigzag scan pattern, instead of reading the pixels sequentially, reads pixels following a zigzag pattern.
The progressive scan method and the interlaced scan method read the entire pixel information of an image regardless of the importance of particular portions of the image. Thus, these methods are inferior in terms of the memory efficiency. The zigzag scan method must go through a separate conversion process. Thus, longer processing time is required and the calculation is complicated in this method.
Applying the observation that human visual sense is generally more sensitive at the central portion of an image than it is at the outer portions of the image, the present invention provides an image retrieval method to read the image contents using the rosette pattern whose scan lines are concentrated at the central part of an image, store indexing information of the database by extracting the characteristic information from the obtained image and to suggest images similar to the query image requested by a user.